put aside, still a world of information relationships, of interconnections, of
context, of evidence, of provenance. Re-creating such relationships for complex
electronic records should be no different for the archivist, at a conceptual and
theoretical level, than unravelling the interconnections of the many series of
records that were typical of the nineteenth-century office, and linking them to
their animating functions and creators. Of course, at the level of strategy and
tactics, there is a world of difference. Margaret Hedstrom and [42] David
Bearman accordingly recommend "reinventing archives" entirely by moving the
focus away from actual custody of records in archives and more towards remote
control of records left on interconnected computers all over the government or
business. Archivists would then be less concerned with traditional curatorship of
physical objects than with the centralized management of organizational
behaviour in order to protect a sense of "recordness" or evidence in the organiza
tion^)' computerized information systems.75 But the essence of the archivist's
task of comprehending and elucidating contextual linkages remains the same.
David Bearman, the most visionary of thinkers dealing with electronic
records, echoes these themes throughout his many writings. He asserts, for
example, that "the important point of these challenges to the traditional
document is that the boundaries of the document have given way to a creative
authoring event in which user and system participate. Only the context in which
these virtual documents are created can give us an understanding of their
content." Bearman argues, reassuringly for archivists, that this new mindset
"corresponds closely to a professional perspective of the archivist, which has
long focused on provenance and the context of records creation rather than on
the physical record or its contents." He concludes that, in terms of the many
problems posed by electronic records, "the analysis to date has enriched the
concept of provenance and reinforced its direct link to missions, functions and
ultimately the activities and transactions of an organization rather than to
organizational units...."76 For some archivists, this latter phrase may prove more
troubling. Such conceptual linkages of records to functions and business
processes rather than to single administrative units undermine many of the
traditional perspectives of archival theory and methodology, as defined above in
the work of the Dutch trio, Jenkinson, Casanova, even Schellenberg. Electronic
records present this stark challenge to archivists: core archival principles will
only be preserved by discarding many of their traditional interpretations and
practical applications.
While there is much long-term merit to the new strategic directions
suggested for the archival profession to deal with the electronic records of
governments and major corporations, such as implementing formal functional
requirements for record-keeping through policy and procedure or within
60
metadata-encapsulated record objects as part of business-acceptable communica
tion standards, these methodologies are much less relevant for private sector
records, or even for the records of many small, transient, let alone defunct,
government agencies, boards, and commissions. Archivists must not ignore
present (if perhaps flawed) electronic records-creating realities or older legacy
system records in order to pursue exclusively reengineering strategies for the
future, or assume that metadata descriptions will replace the broad contextuality
of archival "value added" descriptions. It seems clear that, for some years at
least, the assumptions made by electronic records theorists about redesigning
[43] computer systems' functional requirements to preserve the integrity and
reliability of records, about enforcing organizational accountability through
policy fiat, and about long-term custodial control being assigned to the creator
of archival records will de facto privilege the powerful, relatively stable, and
continuing creators of records capable of such reengineering, and thus, equally,
will disadvantage private and transient record creators who are not so capable or
for whom it is irrelevant. Indeed, the very limiting definition of an archival
record, increasingly used by electronic records archivists, as consisting of
evidence of business transactions, excludes, at least implicitly, any record -and
their creators- not meeting this narrow accountability-driven definition from
the very purview of archives and archivists. The "politics of memory" are
apparently with us still.77
Conclusion I: What is the past that forms our prologue
The challenge of the electronic record provides archivists with a perspective from
which to reflect back on the archival discourse of the century, on the various
interpretations of the interaction of theory and practice. Every archivist in
almost every country shares the cumulative benefit of Muller, Feith, and Fruin's
formal articulation of core archival principles; of Jenkinson's moral defence of
the sanctity of evidence; of Schellenberg's attempts to address actively the volu
minous records of complex modern administrations; of Booms, Samuels, and
others' broadening of the archival vision from an administrative to a societal
conceptual basis; of Taylor's imaginative transformation of fixed archival minds
ets from past to flexible future mode; of the Canadian rediscovery and the
Australian recasting of provenance in light of the complex contextuality of
modern records; of Bearman's persistent challenges to archivists to move from
being keepers to auditors if they hope to preserve provenance and protect the evi
dential accountability of archival electronic records. Yet despite the richness of
archival thinking since the publication of the Dutch Manual, whereby all archi
vists are the beneficiaries of those who have gone before, there remains today the
61
ARCHIEFWETENSCHAP
75 This is the provocative argument of David Bearman and Margaret Hedstrom in "Reinventing Archives for
Electronic Records," pp. 82-98, especially p. 97. Bearman's other key articles on strategic reorientation, dif
fering tactics suitable for varying organizational cultures, and risk management is "Archival Data
Management to Achieve Organizational Accountability for Electronic Records," in McKemmish and
Upward, Archival Documents, pp. 215-27; and his "Archival Strategies." For tactics addressing the archivist's
traditional functions and principles, see Dollar, Archival Theory and Information Technologies, chapter four.
76 David Bearman, "Multisensory Data and Its Management," in Cynthia Durance, ed., Management of
Recorded Information: Converging Disciplines (München, 1990), p. Ill; and "Archival Principles and the
Electronic Office," in Menne-Haritz, Information Handling, p. 193.
TERRY COOK WHAT IS PAST IS PROLOGUE
77 For a more detailed critique of the biases of electronic records archiving as it has been evolving, as well as
an analysis of its strengths in affirming archival relevance in protecting evidence in context, see Terry
Cook, "The Impact of David Bearman on Modern Archival Thinking: An Essay of Personal Reflection and
Critique," Archives and Museum Informatics 11 (1997), pp. 15-37. On the issue of metadata and archival
description, see Heather MacNeil, "Metadata Strategies and Archival Description: Comparing Apples to
Oranges," Archivaria 39 (Spring 1995), pp. 22-32; with the countering case put by David Wallace,
"Managing the Present: Metadata as Archival Description," ibid., pp. 11-21; and originally by David
Bearman, notably in "Documenting Documentation," Archivaria 34 (Summer 1992), pp. 33-49. An
attempted reconciliation is David Bearman and Wendy Duff, "Grounding Archival Description in the
Functional Requirements for Evidence," Archivaria 41 (Spring 1996), pp. 275-303.
